All about the repertoire
The ten or so summers I spent with the Oregon Bach Festival are some of the most important music education I ever received—and it was all about the repertoire.
Several years ago, Helmuth Rilling asked me, “Why do you spend your summers at the Bach Festival? How do you justify leaving your family, your work, and flying out to Oregon for three weeks, year after year?” Without hesitation, I answered, “It’s the repertoire.” I wanted to learn Bach, from the inside out, and this was the best way to do it—singing the major works, repeatedly; singing the cantatas; observing Helmuth himself working with young singers and conductors who did not know Bach--- watching new classes of them, year after year, encountering the same problems, having to learn the same lessons and techniques. And learning as well the other major works by other composers which Helmuth programmed because of their relationship to Bach’s legacy-- learning them through Helmuth’s eyes and ears, with his understanding of their origins and of Bach’s influence. The ten or so summers I spent with the Oregon Bach Festival are some of the most important music education I ever received—and it was all about the repertoire.
Chicago Chorale is all about the repertoire, too. As our mission statement says, we are devoted to high-level performances of the best repertoire we can handle—acknowledged masterpieces, and newer works that we discover and like, and that deserve exposure. I regard repertoire choice as one of the very most important, and exacting, aspects of my role with the group. Truly, I agonize over it. So much music, so little time…
I feel that our singers and listeners (and conductor) need constant reminders of what is good, of what is basic to our art—and I draw on my experience with Helmuth Rilling in enabling this. Not unsurprisingly, I find a metaphor for these reminders in the structure of Lutheran worship. One of Martin Luther’s great contributions was to translate the Bible into contemporary German, so that everyone could read it and base their understanding of their faith on the actual received words, rather than solely on the opinions and decisions of their priests. Each Sunday, we hear readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and from the Gospels—all of them biblical. To this, then, would be added contemporary reflections, both through musical settings of poetry, and the sermon.
I view Bach’s music as representing this “bible”-- as a compendium of all that is good in our music, the structure, the rules; as the highest level combination of intellect, heart, theology, craft. Why Bach? I don’t know; I just now that he rings true for me—as he does for most serious, committed musicians. He is our gold standard, and he tests us most demandingly. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau famously told a young singer, “Learn to sing Bach. Then you can sing anything.” I whole-heartedly subscribe to this notion, on all kinds of fronts. Sing Bach, and you are in a position to evaluate the rest of what you sing, to judge its merits: Bach provides musicians with a yardstick, as Shakespeare does for theater people. Sing Bach, and you are in a position to tackle the technical demands of almost any other composer. Experience first hand the extraordinary emotional expressiveness of Bach, and you are better able to judge whether other composers even come close to his level of communication. Many do, of course; many others fall far short, however, counterfeiting actual feeling, actual joy and sorrow, and feeding the listener instead on musical treacle. Sing Bach, and you share in the whole world of human striving and accomplishment —and are better able to evaluate the accomplishments of other composers, better able to decide whether they are worth the time and energy one must put in, to perform them.
Happily, I observe that the audience is never ”Bached-out”-- any more than they are ever “Shakespeared-out”. All the way from the high-level performances presented by Music of the Baroque and Soli Deo Gloria, to the abridged Passions presented by small churches in the suburbs, people continue to perform Bach, and to listen to it. Nearly every concert pianist who comes to Chicago, includes Bach keyboard works on their recital programs; new recordings of Bach works come out every week. His staying power, over the centuries, is simply amazing. He continues to inform, critique, enthrall, across the centuries and through changing styles of performance and presentation. I also observe that experiencing Bach improves me, and my choirs-- he tests us, shows us where we need to work harder. Everything else we do is transformed by our regular encounters with Bach. He keeps us honest.
Path of Miracles
Talbot is a major new voice for us choral geeks. I hope he composes more for us.
Few American choral music enthusiasts know anything at all about Joby Talbot, composer of Path of Miracles, a major a cappella choral work of which Chorale will perform a portion, on our upcoming June concert. So I’ll begin this post by quoting verbatim from a Wikipedia article:
"Joby Talbot (born 25 August 1971) is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes and an accordingly broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dance. He is therefore known to sometimes disparate audiences for quite different works.
"Prominent compositions include the a cappella choral works The Wishing Tree (2002) and Path of Miracles (2005); orchestral works Sneaker Wave (2004), Tide Harmonic (2009), Worlds, Stars, Systems, Infinity (2012) and Meniscus (2012); the theme and score for the popular BBC Two comedy series The league of Gentlemen (1999-2002); silent film scores The Lodger (1999) and The Dying Swan (2002) for the British Film Institute; film scores The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Son of Rambow (2007) and Penelope (2008).
"Works for dance include Chroma (2006), Genus (2007), Fool’s Paradise (2007), Chamber Symphony (2012), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2011, revived 2012 and 2013) and The Winter’s Tale (2014), the latter two being full-length narrative ballet scores commissioned by The Royal Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada.
"Talbot premiered his first opera in January 2015 with the Dallas Opera. A one-act work entitled Everest and with a libretto by Gene Scheer, it follows three of the climbers involved in the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster."
So. He is young and full of talent; he creatively and fearlessly crosses boundaries and hears possibilities the rest of us hadn’t imagined. And he seems wonderfully energetic and creative.
Path of Miracles charts and describes the medieval pilgrimage across France and Spain to Santiago de Compostella, the final resting place of the remains of St. James. The work’s four movements are titled after the four main staging areas along the route-- Roncesvalles (at the foot of the Pyrenees), Burgos, Leon, and finally Santiago. The work’s librettist, Robert Dickinson, has constructed a narrative which includes quotations from various medieval texts, especially the Codex Calixtinus and a 15th century work in the Galician language called Miragres de Santiago, all held together with passages from the Roman liturgy and lines of original poetry by Dickinson himself. In mood, the work passes from opening excitement and euphoria, through fatigue, pain and suffering, suspicion and discouragement, desolation, to a growing sense of change, of freedom, of joy and light, until the final explosion of joy as the journey ends.
Chorale will present the third movement, Leon, which Talbot describes as a “Lux Aeterna”-- a musical imaging of the interior of the Cathedral of Leon. At this point in the work’s narrative the journey is more than half over, the pains and hardships of the earlier days have been overcome, and the pilgrims proceed almost hypnotically toward their goal. The movement begins with a refrain in C minor sung by four different soprano lines simultaneously—a canon against which the men’s voices sing a narrative, recitative-like line, describing the journey. By the end of the movement, the women’s refrain has modulated from minor to major. The choir sings, “Here daylight gives an image of the heaven promised by His love. We pause, as at the heart of a sun that dazzles and does not burn.”
I expect that anyone hearing this music for the first time will respond as I did, and still do. It is very beautiful, evocative, compelling; Talbot is a major new voice for us choral geeks. I hope he composes more for us.
Herbert Howells' Requiem
Herbert Howells (1892-1983) is one of my favorite English composers, up there with Tallis, Byrd, and Purcell.
Herbert Howells (1892-1983) is one of my favorite English composers, up there with Tallis, Byrd, and Purcell. Though quintessentially a composer of his time and place, specializing in the same genres as his colleagues during the late-nineteenth century and into the first half of the twentieth, he is, for me, very special, very individual: in his text setting and harmonic language; in the manner in which he builds and releases tension; and in the very heartfelt and authentic way these elements of his style express profound emotion while avoiding the formulas and conventions of his contemporaries—those aspects of this music we so easily and comfortably identify as “English.”
The compositional and performance history of his Requiem for a cappella choir (which Chorale will present in June) has been somewhat shrouded in mystery—a mystery which has contributed to a mythology about Howells, and his work, which recent, well-documented scholarship has not entirely corrected. A major pillar of that mythology states that Howells composed the Requiem in response to the death of his son Michael, at the age of nine, in 1935. We now know that the work was composed in 1932 or 1933, long before Michael’s death, and was intended for the choir of King’s College, Cambridge. For some reason, the score was never sent to King’s, and remained unknown until its publication in 1980, only three years before the composer’s own death. Howells himself came to associate the work with his son, and used major portions of it in his subsequent major work, Hymnus Paradisi, for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, a composition intended as his son’s memorial. I read that this larger work is considered the composer’s masterpiece, and have listened to it, and studied the score—and do not find that it has the power, the immediacy, of the original, a cappella composition. I can only be grateful that someone, perhaps Howells himself, realized that the smaller work had a unique beauty, and brought it to the public, rather than archiving it as a sketch.
John Bawden writes, “Howells’ music is much more complex than other choral music of the period, most of which still followed in the Austro-German tradition that had dominated English music for two centuries. Long, unfolding melodies are seamlessly woven into the overall textures; the harmonic language is modal, chromatic, often dissonant and deliberately ambiguous. The overall style is free-flowing, impassioned and impressionistic, all of which gives Howells’ music a distinctive visionary quality.
“The Requiem is written for unaccompanied chorus, which in places divides into double choir. There are six short movements which are organised in a carefully balanced structure. The two outer movements frame two settings of the Latin ‘Requiem aeternam’ and two psalm-settings. Howells reserves his most complex music for the Latin movements, in which he uses poly-tonality, chord-clusters and the simultaneous use of major and minor keys. In contrast, the psalm-settings are simple and direct, the speech-rhythms of the plain chordal writing arising out of the textual inflections.”
I came late to the Requiem. Although it became available to the public in 1980, and choral aficionados throughout the world rapidly became aware of it, I never even heard of it, never listened to a recording of it, until I began rehearsing it with Robert Shaw, in June 1998. Imagine my surprise, my pleasure, my total wonderment, as it unfolded before my eyes and ears. There is no choral work of the last 100 years that I like more. The performance ahead of us will mark the fifth time I have prepared it; the fact that I so eagerly return to it, is the best recommendation I can give it. If you do not know the work—prepare to be bowled over. No one expresses grief, and hope, better than Howells.
Spanish composer Javier Busto
The May 2016 ACDA Choral Journal features an entertaining, far-ranging interview with Spanish composer and conductor Javier Busto, two of whose motets Chorale will present in June.
The May 2016 ACDA Choral Journal features an entertaining, far-ranging interview with Spanish composer and conductor Javier Busto. Chorale will present two Busto motets, Ave Maria and O magnum mysterium, (works which Busto includes in a Top Ten list of his own compositions) at our June 11 concert; so I eagerly read the article when the magazine arrived the other day.
Busto has lived his entire life in Hondarribia, in the Basque region of Spain, where he was (until his recent retirement) a family medical doctor. He claims to be self-taught as a musician: “When I was eighteen years old, I created the first rock band here called the Troublemakers. It was really what I wanted from my musical life. The important thing to say is that I have never studied music: neither solfeggio, nor harmony, nor counterpoint, absolutely nothing!” Despite this, though, and despite his very active medical life, he has been remarkably successful in his avocation, publishing 419 choral compositions, several of which have received worldwide fame and popularity. He has also founded his own choir, Aqua Lauda, an ensemble of sixteen women.
Busto’s style is, by his own admission, Romantic, emotional, accessible. Describing his composition Ave Maria (which Chorale will perform), he says, “In 1985, I presented my Ave Maria at the Tolosa Competition. It was discarded because the jury thought it was too Romantic. According to them, my Ave Maria was a vulgarity. The jury was only composers, not conductors, and was very modern in its approach. I must say to you with modesty that Ave Maria, the same one that was discarded at the competition, is one of the most famous compositions in the entire history of choral music in Spain. It is the one that has sold the most copies, over 120,000. For me, Ave Maria is very important….after that, I decided not to present my works anymore in a composition competition. So, what I believe is important to the judges at composition competitions is that you make the jury think you are presenting something ground-breaking or something that will make someone think. It is not so important that you are writing something beautiful.”
Further on in the interview he states, “I always try to emote, for I believe it’s the most important thing. I don’t particularly like mathematical compositions that are too structured, those that are not going to move me or say anything to me. I work to compose things that possess emotion… my goal is to move people—to move myself, to move the singers, to move the conductor who is going to interpret the piece, and to move the audience. I believe this is my life.”
Don't assume from the above, that Busto’s works are easy to perform well. Many performances are featured on Youtube, and most of these performances are not very good-- they stress the accessible, sentimental side of Busto’s musical personality, but lack the technical underpinning, the clarity and precision required for successful performances. They end up sounding muddy, cluttered, out of focus. Focus and clarity are hard. Chorale is working hard to clarify his dense harmonic textures, and to free his rhythmic movement from ponderousness, to release his melodic arch and let it soar -- to capture the modest, understated crystalline quality of his voice, which is indeed very compelling. It is delicate, sensual music, and requires great care in preparation.
The article’s author tells us that Busto’s works were very popular in the United States during the mid-nineties, when many of them were programmed and recorded by leading choirs. But he slipped out of fashion (right about the time Morton Lauridsen and Eric Whittaker shot to prominence), and one rarely hears his works here anymore, though they continue to be popular in the rest of the world. I find them to be valuable and appealing, and am excited to present them in the context of our spring repertoire, which also includes weightier, more intellectually challenging repertoire. I expect you will like them; I hope you come to hear them!
The Wit and Wisdom of Mr. Shaw
"The arts, like sex, are too important to leave to the professionals."
"The arts, like sex, are too important to leave to the professionals." I heard this statement several times, over the years I sang with Robert Shaw. Musicians throughout the world will observe the 100th anniversary of Shaw’s birth on and around April 30 of this year, and many will share memories of his pithy anecdotes and one-liners. I will especially remember this phrase; it does stick with one. And it references directly the work I do: making choirs out of, and for, amateurs.
Amateur, in its radical and most profound sense, means lover. Amateur musicians love what they do—whether they are paid to do it, or not. Members of Chicago Chorale sing in the group because they love the repertoire, they love getting together to sing it, they love working hard to get it right. I am able to program massive works—the Bach Passions, for instance, the major masses and requiems, the intricate and fiendishly difficult a cappella works of Arvo Pärt and Herbert Howells, the Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil on which we are currently working—because Chorale’s singers love these works, and are willing, even happy, to sweat through the long hours required to learn them, to become comfortable and fluent performing them. I am able to spend the time with the performers that the works require, and our audiences are able to hear the results of our work for reasonable ticket prices.
Chorale exists at least as much for its members, as it does for its audience. I don’t doubt for a moment, that choral singing, especially good, conscientious choral singing, is one of the best things one can do with ones time and energy. Grappling with the best that Bach has to offer brings one closer to the godlike mind and vision of Bach himself-- a state to which all of us should aspire. Embracing the passion and commitment of Rachmaninoff first-hand, sharing in the other-worldly vision of Pärt, can only change us in good ways-- and change our relationship with our culture, and the entire world around us.
Professional music—music for which performers are paid—is a good thing. I have been happy to perform at a high enough level, personally, to be paid for what I do. I am grateful. And I know the pitfalls of such professionalism. I have too often gone into performances under-rehearsed because management could not afford sufficient rehearsal time; I have too often sung with and under musicians whose work I did not enjoy or respect, because I needed the money offered me. I have too often performed repertoire which did not seem worth the effort expended to present it, and about which I felt little pride or sense of accomplishment. I have too often entertained the nagging feeling that the magic I experienced as a child, and as a student, when the vast and wonder-filled world of music opened up to me, was no longer a major part of what I was doing.
I never feel this disappointment when I work with Chorale. Idealism, and love, predominates in this work. I see the awakening of wonder in the eyes of my singers, experience the grateful response of our audience, and I know that what we are doing is right where I want to be. Mr. Shaw had it right.
It's All About the Language
Language sets vocal music apart from instrumental music—and may even turn it into an entirely different art form. Singers undergo training and preparation that is very different from that experienced by instrumentalists.
Language sets vocal music apart from instrumental music—and may even turn it into an entirely different art form. Singers undergo training and preparation that is very different from that experienced by instrumentalists. We learn, and warm up with, the basic Italian vowels—a, e, i, o, and u—but that’s only the beginning; not only do we have many more vowels than these to learn, but we have to relearn even the basic five as we move from language to language. [a] in Italian is very different from [a] in Russian. And then there are the consonants, bewildering enough in our own language, but really mystifying when moving far afield-- “what do you mean, isn’t T just T? And L just L? ” The looks of blank incomprehension that greet critiques of the manner in which T and L are pronounced, are priceless.
And the various sounds of language, the phonemes, are just the beginning. Singers have to sing as though they understand what the language means, too. Ideally, all of the singers in a choir would be linguists, reading and speaking numerous languages, ears and brains open to new sounds, new meanings. The truth is far from that. So, when tackling a major work in a foreign language, the conductor has to arrange, in advance, to spend a considerable amount of rehearsal time on extra-musical matters, and to enlist extra-musical help. The work we are currently preparing, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, sets a text entirely in Old Church Slavonic—a language in which I have no particular proficiency. The editor of the edition from which we are singing has devised a helpful, comprehensive transliteration and pronunciation system—he even sends out a CD of the text spoken by a knowledgeable speaker—but Chorale goes further, and has a language coach, Drew Boshardy, present at all of our rehearsals (he also sings with the group), who reads the text, has the singers repeat it, corrects their errors, listens to them sing it, corrects them again—and is vigilant throughout the rehearsal process, jumping in with comments whenever he hears something questionable. He also points out the meanings of specific words, and guides us in word accents and the overall mood of particular phrases.
Drew has a degree in Slavic languages from the University of Chicago, and his help is invaluable; if we didn’t have him, we’d have to find someone much less convenient. We make the same sort of arrangements when we sing in German, French, Norwegian; care for language is a very important part of the Chicago Chorale experience. Agreement on vowel color is essential to good intonation; clear, uniform consonants define rhythm. And the meaning of the text determines interpretation. Even if listeners in the audience are not aware of what we are doing, or if a particularly juicy acoustical space obscures the details we so carefully stress, the precision and care with which we present the language, and the music, still comes through. We sound together, and committed.
Singers, and choirs full of singers, stand to learn a great deal from instrumentalists: from their precision, their intonation, their careful control of dynamics and color. Often, when preparing the major Bach works, I talk in rehearsal about the way in which string players would accent or phrase a certain passage, simply because of the characteristics of their instruments. But I have often noticed, as well, in the instrumentalists’ printed parts, that some players write the words in at crucial points, to guide them in the choices they make—and I rejoice to see this. Singers bring something very special to a musical preparation. We all profit through learning from one another.
Start Your Own Choir
Twenty years ago I could not have imagined I, and the choirs I conduct, would be in this place today.
Twenty years ago—January 1996—I sat in a hotel room in New York, talking with my wife on the phone, in complete despair about my professional future. We were attempting to make a life commuting between her university in Virginia, and mine in Chicago—with a four-year old child in the middle. Due to a random collision of events— a blizzard in Virginia, several concerts in Chicago, a week in New York with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers—we had not seen each other in three weeks. This clearly was not working; we would have to make a big decision, and one of us would have to give in, to preserve our marriage and family. My roommate, Harry Keuper, was waving his arms in the background, drawing his finger across his throat, whispering frantically “Don’t make decisions over the phone!” I finally did get off the phone, and Harry said, “I’ll call Robert” (Harry had access)—and shortly, sure enough, Robert Shaw was on the phone, telling me, “Forget about academic choral music. Start your own choir. That’s what our country needs.” I was wed to the security represented by the fifteen years I had spent conducting choirs and teaching voice on the college level. I could not imagine doing as Mr. Shaw suggested (more like, commanded). I did give up my job and move to Virginia— and proceeded to struggle for five years with an ill-fitting adjunct position, feeling increasingly that my professional life had come to an end. We decided to move back to Chicago—and within one month of our August, 2001, arrival, I had given in to Mr. Shaw’s dictum, and started my own choir. A friend from the Shaw program, Charles Bruffy, conducted a group named “Kansas City Chorale,” and I decided to copy him—and so was born Chicago Chorale.
Well, it worked. I wish Mr. Shaw were alive to see it, and to see that someone, at least, had done what he was continually telling us to do. I had never previously thought of myself as an entrepreneur—but it was learn, or die; and I had little choice. I got on the phone, got on email, contacted singers, who contacted other singers; I located a rehearsal space; I scheduled a performance for December; I got some music together; and then held my breath as twenty-four singers arrived for our first rehearsal and began to sing. I had no diagram, no future plans, no specific goals, and I rather hated that I was being forced into this—but we did it, and it worked.
Five years later, a group of male undergrads from the University of Chicago approached me and asked if I would start a choir for them, too. They didn’t really know what they wanted; they just wanted something that the university did not offer. Well, it was the same thing: find some singers, find a place to rehearse, put some music together, schedule a performance, and again hold my breath as twelve guys straggled in, as unsure of what they were asking, as I was of what I could do for them. And again, it worked. Chicago Men’s A Cappella saw the light of day.
So I celebrate two anniversaries this year: Chorale’s fifteenth, and CMAC’s tenth. Twenty years ago I could not have imagined I, and the choirs I conduct, would be in this place today—I had far different plans and ambitions, back then. But I found myself at a professional impasse, and felt I had no choice but to follow Mr. Shaw’s rather blunt, unhelpful advice. I honor him for giving it: his seeds fell on fertile ground. And I honor the singers and listeners who have supported his vision, and helped it to bear fruit. Both ensembles will celebrate their anniversaries this spring with gala reunion events; I hope you will come and participate, and celebrate the words and vision of a man who spoke so compellingly to me twenty years ago, and continues to speak to us in the choral music profession, from beyond the grave.
Spiritual Minimalism's Grand Old Men
The original "spiritual minimalists" are strikingly different from one another, with distinctive voices, and do not regard themselves as any sort of unit.
The most successful and well-known composers on our coming concert, aside from Pärt himself, are Henryk Górecki (1933-2010) and John Tavener (1944-2013). They, along with Pärt, are most often referred to as the “spiritual minimalists” whose work has attracted large audiences and radically altered the course of choral music composition. They are strikingly different from one another, with distinctive voices, and do not regard themselves as any sort of unit. What they have in common is that they compose from positions deeply rooted in personal religious faith, finding inspiration in sacred, liturgical texts; and they have all moved from somewhat complex, academic compositional practices in their earlier years, toward simpler, more straightforward and emotionally evocative styles as they have matured.
Górecki was a leading figure in the Polish avant garde during the post-Stalin years, composing serial works during the 1950s and 1960s which were characterized by dissonant modernism, influenced by other modernist composers such as Luigi Nono, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. By the mid-1970s, however, he had shifted toward a less complex sound, one characterized by large, slow gestures and the repetition of small motifs, exemplified by the Amen (1975) which Chorale will sing. He achieved sudden, worldwide fame in 1992, when his Third Symphony, subtitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, commemorating the memory of those who died during the Holocaust, became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million recordings.
Like other composers on this program, Górecki was politically active, and in constant conflict with the Polish Communist authorities, whom he described as “little dogs always yapping.” As a professor of musicianship, composition, and orchestration at the Academy of Music in Katowice, he had a reputation for bluntness and ruthlessness, telling his students, “If you can live without music for two or three days, then don’t write…It might be better to spend time with a girl or with a beer.” A devout Roman Catholic, he resigned from his teaching position in 1979 to protest the government's refusal to allow Pope John Paul II to visit Katowice; when the pope finally visited Poland, in 1987, Górecki composed his motet Totu tuus in honor of the visit.
British composer John Tavener enjoyed a life characterized by far less external conflict and stress than the composers who matured and worked in Soviet bloc countries. His family was comfortably affluent, he attended good schools, and experienced early recognition and success for his compositional efforts. But, like Pärt and Górecki, he experienced a radical change in his fundamental compositional ideas, from his earlier works in a style reminiscent of Messiaen and Stravinsky, toward a sparser, more diatonic, contemplative style, characterized by textural transparency-- described by composer Johan Rutter as being able to "bring an audience to a deep silence.”
Tavener converted to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977; thereafter, Orthodox theology and liturgical traditions became a major influence on his work. He was particularly drawn to its mysticism, studying and setting to music the writings of the Orthodox church fathers. In later years, he explored a number of other religious traditions, including Hinduism and Islam. In an interview with The New York Times, Tavener said: "I reached a point where everything I wrote was terribly austere and hidebound by the tonal system of the Orthodox Church, and I felt the need, in my music at least, to become more universalist: to take in other colors, other languages." Chorale will sing Song for Athene (1993), which sets a text by Mother Tekla, a Russian Orthodox abbess who was Tavener's long-time spiritual adviser. Song for Athene brought Tavener international exposure and fame when it was performed at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.
Jan Sandström and Urmas Sisask
The era of spiritual minimalism has encouraged composers and performers to range widely, and to explore many sources—musical, religious, and philosophical-- in search of inspiration.
The era of spiritual minimalism has encouraged composers and performers to range widely, and to explore many sources—musical, religious, and philosophical-- in search of inspiration. One recurring theme in the biographies of our November concert composers is the interest in early church music—especially Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony. The composers are drawn to the seeming simplicity of this music, to its starkness, to its capacity to inspire emotion and wonder out of almost nothing. I remember rehearsing Pärt and Gorecki pieces with Robert Shaw, and his somewhat frustrated comment that their music reminded him of crawling back into the womb. That is a strangely is a valid description of what the composers are attempting: a radical return to the most fundamental materials and meaning of music, and to the meaning of silence—where does music come from? Why do we do it?
Two of the most experimental composers on our program are Jan Sandström (b.1954) and Urmas Sisask (b.1960). Sandström was born in the far North of Sweden, at the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, near the town of Piteå, and is now Professor of Composition at the College of Music there. I spent several weeks at that school, about twenty-five years ago, and found it to be a very surprising and inspiring place—an island of intense energy and creativity in the midst of lakes, birch trees, and silence. I was there during the eternal light of summer; I cannot imagine what it must be like during the winter. Such an environment must inevitably invite one to question the patterns and assumptions that sustain life in more normal settings. Sandström is most famous for his Motorbike Concerto for trombone and large orchestra, and for his setting of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen for 8-part chorus at a glacially slow tempo. He began his compositional career writing in an austere, theoretical, sophisticated, densely-constructed idiom, making using of spectral techniques (composition based on analyses of overtone registers). Then, in the late 1980’s he shifted toward a more minimalist style. A review of his 2008 Rekviem summarised: "99% Pärt, 1% Bach". Gloria, the work we will sing on our program, falls squarely within this latter style.
Estonian composer Urmas Sisask graduated from the Tallinn Conservatory in 1985, and, unlike his compatriot Pärt, has spent his entire compositional life in Estonia, focusing on the culture and folk music of that particular locale. He is described as both composer and amateur astronomer, but these two activities are in fact closely interlinked. He lives in the small, remote village of Janeda, where he has built his own observatory, and where he gives concerts and lectures in his Musical Planetarium situated in the tower of an old manor house. He has worked out theoretical sound values for the rotations of the planets in the solar system. This reduces to a planetal scale' of five tones: C-sharp, D, F-sharp, G-sharp and A. This scale forms the melodic and harmonic basis for many of his later compositions, though not for Benedictio, the work Chorale will present. Benedictio reflects, rather, another of Sisask’s strong interests, the shamanic pre-Christian religion indigenous to the Baltic region, and the folk music associated with it. He has developed his own, expressive musical language based upon these influences, which, with its constant reference to perfect fourths and fifths, is harmonically closer to old church modes than to the diatonic, major/minor system utilized by Pärt and Sandström. Benedictio is set in an incantatory style, based upon repeated, hypnotic rhythmic and melodic patterns, building to enormous, almost bacchanalian climaxes, unlike anything heard in the gentler and subtler music of our other chosen composers.
A Good Potato
I have been thinking a lot lately about my voice teacher, Norman Gulbrandsen, who died five years ago.
I have been thinking a lot lately about my voice teacher, Norman Gulbrandsen, who died five years ago. Interestingly, when I think about mentors and teachers who had the greatest impact on me, voice teachers are every bit as important as choral conductors—and Norman is right at the top of the list. One would be hard-pressed to ascribe a method or technique to him—mostly, he listened and commented, and had you try it again. His ear for what you should be doing, for what your voice and body should be accomplishing, was his great gift. It was almost unerring. And he never gave in, at least with me-- I was by no means one of his more gifted singers, but he always took me seriously, pushed me, encouraged me to exceed my limitations and personal expectations, recognized my strengths and supported my accomplishments. I always looked forward to my lessons, was happy to see him; and I always regretted I could not be a better singer, and give him more of what he wanted.
Norman and I shared Norwegian heritage—and this was a constant source of good-natured banter. He would address me as Norske gute (Norwegian boy) when I showed up for my lesson, and ask what obscure Grieg song I wanted to work on this week (I had a lot of them). More than the banter, though, we shared a certain, typical outlook toward quality of work. He was always critical of the more precious expressive habits I picked up through listening to recordings and attending master classes, and would tell me, “Just put one note in front of the other, and make sure they are all good notes.” One memorable day he really dug deep, and said, “I love potatoes. Good potatoes. Give me a good, solid potato every time; I don’t need any gravy on it. In fact, the older I get, the less I care about gravy at all, and the more satisfied I am with a solid, good potato.” Knocked me flat. I remember the day, his face, the face of the accompanist, Kit Bridges-- a Joycean epiphany. I understood, like I had never understood before then. He was talking about Elly Ameling’s iron fist in the velvet glove; about Robert Shaw’s count singing; about Weston Noble’s insistent, repetitive lining up of vowels and tuning of chords—but in a language which was peculiar to where I came from, language my parents and grandparents would have understood. Just give me the real potato; the rest will follow.
He had a strange faith that musical sensitivity and expressiveness were innate-- that if a singer really understood the words—not just literally, but poetically--, understood the harmonies, understood the melodic direction, the music would just happen; his job was to train and refine the physical mechanism through which this mystical thing could be accomplished. Week after week he would tell me, “You don’t have to convince me that you are musical; you over-express when you try to do that. And that bends your voice out of shape. Trust yourself and your love of these words and music. Just put one note in front of the other, and you’ll be fine.”
More than a guide to good singing, his illustration was a life lesson. Be solid, be straightforward; stand behind your work. Know where you stand, and be unassailable in that place. Don’t hide shoddy work under gravy—and don’t be fooled by anyone elses gravy, either. He gave me a lot of courage, when I needed that encouragement most sorely. I grow quite a lot of potatoes in my garden, each summer, in honor of him; and when I come across a particular beauty, I think of him. I’d love to be able to take it to his studio and hand it to him—a good, solid potato. I stand behind this.
Arvo Pärt at 80
Chorale’s November concerts are built around the music of Arvo Pärt, in honor of his 80th birthday. A third of our selections will be by Pärt, the other two thirds by composers associated with him in one way or another.
Chorale’s November concerts are built around the music of Arvo Pärt, in honor of his 80th birthday. A third of our selections will be by Pärt, the other two thirds by composers associated with him in one way or another.
Pärt was born in Estonia in 1935, during the brief window before World War II during which Estonia and the other Baltic countries were sovereign nations, before being taken over, first, by the Nazis, and then by the Soviet Union. The Soviet occupation profoundly impacted his musical development—little news and influence from outside the Soviet Union were allowed into Estonia, and Pärt had to make a lot up as he went along, with the help of illegally obtained tapes and scores, and under constant threat of harassment from the Soviet authorities.
His compositions are generally divided into two periods. His early works demonstrate the influence of Russian composers such as Shostakovich and Prokofiev, but he quickly became interested in Schoenberg and serialism, planting himself firmly in the modernist camp. This brought him to the attention of the Soviet establishment, which banned his works; it also proved to be a creative dead-end for him. Shut down by the authorities, Pärt entered a period of compositional silence, having "reached a position of complete despair in which the composition of music appeared to be the most futile of gestures, and he lacked the musical faith and willpower to write even a single note (Paul Hillier)." During this period he immersed himself in early European music, from Gregorian chant through the development of polyphony in the Renaissance. The music that began to emerge after this period—a date generally set at 1976-- was radically different from what had preceded it. Pärt himself describes the music of this period as tintinnabuli —like the ringing of bells. It is characterized by simple harmonies, outlined triads, and pedal tones, with simple rhythms which tend not to change tempo over the course of a composition. He converted from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, and began to set Biblical and liturgical texts, with an obvious faith and fervor which once again brought him into conflict with the Soviet regime.
In 1980, after years of struggle over his overt religious and political views, the Soviet regime allowed him to emigrate with his family. He lived first in Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship, and then relocated to Berlin, in 1981. He returned to Estonia after that country regained its independence, in 1991, and now lives alternately in Berlin and Tallinn.
Chorale will perform a chronological range of Pärt’s a cappella sacred music, beginning with Summa (1977), an austere setting of the Latin Credo which clearly demonstrates the early development of his signature tintinnabular style; Bogoroditse Djevo (1990); Zwei slawische Psalmen (1997); Nunc dimittis (2001); and Da pacem Domine (2004). We don’t intend our concert to be an academic display of Pärt’s development, but I do think listeners will be interested to hear how these works differ from one another, reflecting his growing confidence in his materials, and his growing ease at using these materials to express the emotional depth of his religious faith, moving from the strictly abstract toward something which transcends technique and procedure, and manages to fill a deep human need in those who experience his music.
Ready... Set... RETREAT!
Each autumn, close to the beginning of the new season’s rehearsal period, Chorale holds a Saturday retreat.
Each autumn, close to the beginning of the new season’s rehearsal period, Chorale holds a Saturday retreat, at which we eat three times, rehearse for about five hours, and have a chance to interact with one another, extensively and extra-musically. For the past three seasons, we have retreated to Ellis Avenue Church, a reconfigured mansion in the Kenwood neighborhood, just north of Hyde Park. The building has a room big enough to hold all of us, a decent piano, a large kitchen, a spacious yard, and a wonderful, open front porch and steps, where most of our non-musical time is spent.
The food, the drinks, the dishes and utensils, the charcoal, are provided both by Chorale management, and by Chorale members. We always have more than we consume—our members are generous. Coffee, bagels, and donuts for breakfast; pizza or sandwiches for lunch; bratwurst and potluck items for supper. While Chorale rehearses, our managing director, Megan Balderston, and our board president, Angela Grimes, set things out for the various meals, then clear them away to make room for the next repast. At the end of the day, folks pack up their leftovers, their coolers, their dishes and utensils, and head home.
Frequently, we have guest observers, who show up in the afternoon and sit in on our rehearsal, watching and listening as we work, and then join us for supper. At various points during rehearsal, we break off singing, and Megan, Angela, and I address the choir about our coming season, as well as explain various long-term policies and procedures, of which new members may be unaware—and of which everyone should be reminded.
This retreat, coming as it does between two consecutive Wednesday rehearsals, really jump-starts our learning of new music. With only two or three days between rehearsals, the singers forget very little between one Wednesday and the next, and end up much further along with concert preparation, by the second Wednesday, than the hours of rehearsal alone would suggest. And—the choral disciplines to which we subscribe, become more familiar and deep-seated, with concentrated exposure. Our sound, our phrasing, our onsets and cutoffs, all improve immensely over the course of this one week.
A word about the bratwurst. I have always provided bratwurst for my choirs, ever since I began conducting at the University of Chicago, back in 1984. I used to order it—first, from Tuvey’s Meat and Music, in Watertown, Minnesota, back when my family farmed near there; then, after I moved to the University of Virginia, through a German restaurant in Charlottesville. About the time I returned to Chicago and founded Chorale, it occurred to me that I could save a lot of money, and have more fun, if I just made it myself. I had grown up in a sausage-making family, and knew it was possible. I experimented around with recipes and procedures, and finally came up with what I now make. There is always plenty. This year, a former member of my other ensemble, Chicago Men's A Cappella, Adam Gillette, will start the fires and do some grilling while we rehearse—so that the brats will be ready, fresh and hot, when we quit rehearsing.
Sausage is like choirs: one takes many disparate ingredients, carefully and artfully combines them, stuffs them into something that gives them structure, and comes up with a product that is ever so much better than the sum of its parts. For me, a perfect metaphor for my role as conductor.
Our first rehearsal of the season
Choirs work better when they know and like each other—and food always helps.
Chorale held it’s inaugural rehearsal of the 2015-16 season last night! It was great to be together again, to catch up with one another, to greet our new singers (ten of them), renew relationships with former singers who have returned for this season after a hiatus. Librarian Amy Mantrone distributed packets of music for the current preparation, all punched and stamped and numbered; Drew Boshardy arrived early to help figure out how to set up the chairs; Mike Byrley directed the storage of said chairs at the conclusion of the rehearsal. Mary Bellmar and Peter Olson brought a wonderful spread of food for singers to eat during break. We took time for every member of the group, new and returning, to introduce themselves. Choirs work better when they know and like each other—and food always helps.
First order of musical business, as always, was to place the singers in a workable, “rough draft” of a seating chart, based on vocal characteristics, musicianship, musicality-- all aspects balanced to aid in helping the singers to be comfortable making their best sounds, their best contribution to the choral product. I use a short passage from a chorale, which I have the singers perform over and over again, in different combinations of voices, until I come up with an optimum unison. Several singers, especially the University of Chicago students (who don’t begin classes for another week) were not present; I made my best guesses as to where they would fit, and will refine the placement once they are back. Choosing appropriate singers through auditions is the first important step in establishing Chorale’s distinctive sound; equally important, though, is this placement procedure. I make choices that suit my ear, my ideal of choral sound; once placed, the singers become accustomed to singing with the people around them, and modify their personal habits to move toward a common approach. A different conductor would make different choices in placement, and come up with a different sound from the same set of singers.
Placement accomplished, we opened our folders and read through a few of our pieces with the help of Kit Bridges, our accompanist. We didn’t really have time to break the pieces down and rehearse them intensely; rather, we accustomed ourselves to singing together, and I had a chance to hear the group, myself, observing our sound, our reading, our expressiveness. I took mental notes about our strengths, our weaknesses, made plans about what we would focus on at our next rehearsal. Much of our current repertoire is divided into far more vocal lines than just your standard SATB; and I tend to make divisi assignments as we come to them and I have a chance to hear balance, moving voices around, adding extra singers where needed, rather than just come up with a divisi formula at the beginning of the rehearsal period and use that formula each time something is needed. We made some of those decisions last night, but they were guesses; I’ll have to hear them with the missing singers, to be sure the balance is what we want.
After rehearsal, many of us went up the street to Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap and continued the opening festivities later into the night. It was a happy first rehearsal for all of us.
Excelsior! Chicago Chorale begins its 15th Season
The music is simply astounding in its beauty, its range of expression, in its sheer sonic mystery. You won’t want to miss this.
Chorale had an eventful summer. Our concert tour to the Baltic countries was an unqualified success-- we sang in magnificent, acoustically rich venues, for standing room-only audiences; we ate wonderful food, drank exotic local beverages, in great variety and abundance; we stayed in fabulous hotels; we saw and became acquainted with interesting, beautiful countries, each of which had its own compelling story; and we all made it back home, safe and sound.
Less than a week later, we began rehearsals for the screening of the Gladiator movie at Ravinia, music track provided by Chorale and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We invited singers from throughout the Chicago area to join us in this venture, and had, as always, a wonderful time, in a venue and setting unlike anything else we do.
Since then, the singing aspect of the ensemble has been on hiatus, while the administrative wheels have been turning, preparing for our fifteenth anniversary season, finishing the season brochure, readying music for the singers, completing our roster. Now, rehearsals kick in, new singers find their way into the group’s sound and ethos, and we begin learning our concert program for this fall.
Our autumn concert, entitled Arvo Pärt at Eighty, celebrates the career achievement of one of the most important living composers, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. How fortunate for Chorale, that we were able to sing on his home turf just this past summer, presenting concerts in both Haapsalu and Tallinn. So much of his music is a reflection of his home country, of the sky, the sea, the forests, the White Nights of summer and the dark days of winter-- and we feel enriched by our experience of these things, as we approach his music. We were fortunate to share a concert with an Estonian choir singing predominantly Pärt’s music, in Tallinn—to hear their vocal color and approach, their articulation style (reflecting the Estonian language), their particular type of expressiveness-- all aspects of musical performance that cannot be notated.
About half of our concert will consist of Pärt’s music; the other half will feature individual pieces by composers contemporaneous with him, influenced by him, perhaps even influential on his compositional development. These composers include the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt, Swede Jan Sandström, Latvian Rihards Dubra, Lithuanian Vytautis Miskinis, Estonian Urmas Sisask, Pole Henryk Gorecki, and Britisher John Tavener-- a virtual who’s who of the spiritual minimalist movement in choral composition.
We will present our concert twice: Friday, November 20, at Hyde Park Union Church, and Saturday November 21, 8 PM, at St. Vincent De Paul Parish, in Lincoln Park. Season subscriptions, as well as individual tickets, will soon be available on our website. We hope to see you at one of these concerts! The music is simply astounding in its beauty, its range of expression, in its sheer sonic mystery. You won’t want to miss this.
The rest of our June 13 program
Chorale has had a good, and rigorous, experience, preparing this concert.
Many American choirs—and their conductors—are head over heels with English choral music, of all historic periods, and with the English choral sound. Much of this music is indeed extraordinarily good, and the English choirs set an enviable performance standard for the rest of the choral world; but beyond an objectively high level of achievement, so very much of the success of this music lies in performance practice, especially in style of pronunciation—the vowels, consonants, whole phrases, are so clearly and characteristically pronounced, with a distinctive public school accent (which is loved by American ears). And this dialect of English then influences the vocal sound produced by its practitioners. Sadly, most American singers have as hard a time with this accent, as they do with French: we can’t quite shake our own version of English—or our own, rather red meat-and-potatoes approach to vocal technique—and end up sounding caricatured, forced, and out of tune, singing in our native language. My own response has been to program English music sparingly, and then only if I like it for something other than its “Englishness.” Chorale’s upcoming concert includes music by four English composers. Two of them, Henry Purcell and Bob Chilcott, I wrote about several weeks ago; that leaves only two others. The first,
Philip Stopford (b.1977), began his musical career as a member of the choir of Westminster Abbey, and is currently the director of the Ecclesium professional choir, which has recorded many CDs of Stopford's original works, and of the smaller Melisma performing ensemble. A church musician by training and experience, he composes primarily settings of traditional Latin and English prayers and hymns. Ave Verum, composed in 2007, was commissioned by St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast , Northern Ireland, while Stopford was serving as choral director there.
The second, John Tavener (1944-2013), was one of the best-known and popular composers of his generation, loosely associated with Henryk Górecki and Arvo Pärt as a “spiritual minimalist. “ He is known primarily for his extensive output of religious choral works, which have been performed all over the world and recorded by hundreds of choirs. Like Pärt, he was an Orthodox Christian,
though he explored other religious traditions, especially Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. The Lamb, a setting of William Blake’s poem from Songs of Innocence and Experience, was composed for the birthday of his nephew, and premiered by the Choir of King’s College as part of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in 1982.
Chorale has had a good, and rigorous, experience, preparing this concert. As expected, they had to sharpen their ears, eyes, and subtler responses, after the preceding two preparations of orchestrally accompanied music by Mozart and Bach; this program of a cappella miniatures requires constant attention to intonation, a more precise calibration of effect, and a more finely-tuned response across the ensemble. There is no accompaniment behind which the singers can hide. Some of the music is more technically accessible than much of what Chorale prepares—but in almost every case, transparency of texture and harmonic straightforwardness requires better vocalism than something painted with a broader brush. We have been challenged! and we look forward to singing for our audience. We hope you’ll join us: Saturday, June 13, 8:00 PM, St. Vincent DePaul Parish, in Lincoln Park.
Eriksson, Olsson, and Rautavaara-- our nod toward the North.
Chorale tends to sing a large amount of music from the Scandinavian and Baltic region of Europe, and really enjoys it.
Chorale will not sing much Scandinavian or Baltic music on its spring concert, nor on its tour of the Baltic countries later in the summer. This is not our norm: we tend to sing a large amount of music from that part of Europe, and really enjoy it. But we assume that audiences in those countries will come to our concerts because they want to hear something new and different, something more typical of an American choir; if they are choral enthusiasts, they are likely to be plenty familiar with music from their own part of the world, already. The choral culture in those countries is highly developed, and tends to express a fierce nationalism-- and I have a feeling it would seem somewhat odd, for us to be singing music which is so personal and political for our listeners. I’d rather listen to them sing it! The regional music we have chosen to sing comes from Sweden and Finland, rather than from the “Baltic countries” of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (with the exception of Arvo Pärt). And the work listed under the authorship of Swede Gunnar Eriksson is not really by him, or even by a Scandinavian. Komm süsser Tod is the result of many minds’ labor, and defies categorization. Originally, it was the first three lines of a song for solo voice and continuo, which J.S. Bach contributed to Georg Christian Schemelli's Musicalisches Gesangbuch (BWV 478) in 1736:
Komm süßer Tod. Komm sel’ge Ruh’. Komm führe mich in Frieden.
Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt (1915-2014) arranged these lines for SATB voices a cappella, as the basis of a larger composition, named Immortal Bach. Gunnar Eriksson, professor of choral conducting at the University of Göteborg, extracted Nystedt’s SATB harmonization, and published it in a collection entitled Kör ad lib, a collection of thirty-three such kernels selected as subjects for choral improvisation. Following Eriksson’s suggestion, Chorale utilizes four principle singers as leaders of their respective sections; the resulting musical experience reflects their individual choices, though the harmonic combinations are anything but predictable.
Otto Olsson (1879-1964) was primarily an organist, and taught counterpoint, harmony, liturgy, and hymnody at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. Though his preferred idiom was late Romantic, with rich harmonies, wide tessituras, and ardent emotionalism, Olsson’s choral compositions also demonstrate his affinity for Gregorian chant, and an interest in polytonality. Chorale will perform his Latin motet Jesu dulcis memoria, which, though nominally in B flat Major, has alternating sections in D Major, suggesting a modal, folk music background—Edvard Grieg’s footprint in all twentieth century Scandinavian music -- as much as a modern approach to tonality.
Chorale will sing just one short movement from the All-Night Vigil of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928), Herra Armahda II. In the Orthodox tradition, the All-Night Vigil is a liturgy, including both Vespers and Matins, which prepares participants for a major feast day. Rautavaara, perhaps the best- known contemporary Finnish composer, composed his vigil specifically in memory of St. John the Baptist. His music has a raw, visceral, yet euphoric quality, totally unique in twentieth century a cappella repertoire. Rautavaara responds to what he calls the “unbelievable, naively harsh and mystically profound” texts of this vigil, with music which is strikingly active, varied, pulsating with energy and emotion. This particular movement sets only the words “Lord have mercy,” but serves as an introduction to the composer’s style in the rest of the work.
The Americans
Chorale’s June concert program will include a cappella pieces by American composers Stephen Paulus, Vincent Persichetti, Jean Berger, Morten Lauridsen, and Abba Yosef Weisgal.
Chorale’s June concert program will include a cappella pieces by American composers Stephen Paulus (1949-2014), Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987), Jean Berger (1909-2002), Morten Lauridsen (b.1943), and Abba Yosef Weisgal (1885-1981).
Abba Weisgal was born in Kikl, Poland, and received his musical training—both as a cantor, and as a composer—first in Breslau, then in Vienna. He served as an officer in the Austrian army during World War I, and then took up cantorial duties in Eibeschitz, Bohemia. He immigrated with his family to the United States in 1921, hoping to become an opera composer. Very soon after his arrival, however, he was engaged as full-time cantor by the Chizuk Amuno congregation in Baltimore, where he remained for more than forty years, utilizing his compositional talent and skills to provide music for conservative and reform worship. His son, Hugo Weisgall (1912-1997), did become a noted opera composer. Sim Sholom is typical of Abba Weisgal’s liturgical works: it combines elements of Eastern European, Ashkenazic Judaism with the reform, German-influenced procedures inherited from such nineteenth-century composers as Salomon Sulzer and Louis Lewandowski.
Morton Lauridsen grew up in Portland, Oregon, in a Danish immigrant family. After graduating from Whitman College, he studied composition at the University of Southern California. Following his graduation in 1967, he joined the faculty at U.S.C., later becoming chair of the composition department. In 1994, he became composer-in-residence for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted at that time by Paul Salamunovich; through this collaboration, his choral works have become widely known and performed; today he is America’s most frequently-performed choral composer. “O Nata Lux” is an a cappella movement from Lux Aeterna, one of seven major vocal cycles Lauridsen has composed. After its premier in 1997, a writer for The Times called it “a classic of new American choral writing” and said “old world structures and new world spirit intertwine in a cunningly written score, at once sensuous and spare.” He utilizes a limited, conservative tonal palette, enlivened by lyrical melodic lines and unusual chord spacings. His music owes a debt to the spiritual minimalist movement, represented by Arvo Pärt and John Tavener, but has an unmistakably American sound—influenced by popular music of the earlier twentieth century.
Vincent Persichetti, a native of Philadephia, was an extraordinarily prolific composer, and the catalogue of his works astonishes with its breadth-- he wrote for piano, organ, wind ensemble, chamber ensemble, big band, symphony orchestra, solo voice, and chorus. He taught theory and composition first at the Philadelphia Conservatory, and later at the Juilliard School, and was editorial director of the Elkan-Vogel publishing house. He was one of the foremost representatives of what has become known as the American academic school of composition, along with William Schumann and Walter Piston. His compositional “voice” is somewhat eclectic-- it is hard to pin down a specific Persichetti sound; rather, he seems to adapt his materials to the instruments or purposes for which his music is intended. His Mass, Opus 84, for unaccompanied voices, commissioned by New York’s Collegiate Chorale in 1960, is a good example of this: based on a Phrygian mode Gregorian chant, it sounds on many ways like a Renaissance a cappella mass, with a nearly constant imitative counterpoint texture of relying on imitative counterpoint as its chief developmental procedure. Most of the Mass has a dark, somewhat cool, detached, introspective sound; the Agnus Dei movement, which Chorale will sing, is, by contrast, ardent and emotionally expressive.
Unlike Persichetti, Jean Berger focused his creative energies almost entirely on vocal and choral music. Like Weisgal, he was originally European—his original name was Arthur Schlossberg, and he was born into Jewish family and grew up in Alsace-Lorraine. He studied musicology at the universities of Vienna and Heidelberg, and received his Ph.D. in 1931. After the Nazis seized power in Germany in 1933, he moved to Paris, where he took the French name Jean Berger, and toured widely as a pianist and accompanist. In 1941, he moved to the United States, joined the U.S. Army, and became a citizen. After the war, he held academic positions in musicology at Middlebury College, the University of Illinois, and the University of Colorado. In 1964 he founded the John Sheppard Music Press in Boulder, Colo., and later Denver. As a musicologist, Berger edited several 17th century works and wrote about the Italian composer Giacomo Perti. His compositional output was not enormous; but several of his choral octavos, including The Eyes of All, are among the best-known and most popular American choral works.
Stephen Paulus lived for most of his life in St. Paul, Minnesota, and received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota. He composed over 450 works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensemble, opera, solo voice, piano, guitar, organ, and band; and he held Composer in Residence positions with the orchestras of Atlanta, Minnesota, Tucson and Annapolis. He is best known for his choral music and opera, ranging from elaborate multi-part works and operas with extensive choral scenes, to brief anthems and a cappella motets. Chicago Chorale commissioned a work from him in 2007, entitled And Give Us Peace, which we both premiered and recorded. Pilgrims’ Hymn, which was sung at the funerals of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, is a very successful hybrid: though it functions as a motet, is actually a chorus from his “church opera,“ The Three Hermits. In contrast to the other composers on this “American” list, Paulus never held a “day job”: his entire career was focused on composing and publishing his own music.
Centeno and Pärt, composers
I expect our audience will be as pleased to hear us sing these pieces, as the singers are to perform them.
Da pacem Domine, the title of Chorale’s spring concert preparation, is taken from a sixth century Gregorian hymn :
Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris Quia non est alius Qui pugnet pro nobis Nisi tu Deus noster. | Give peace, o Lord, in our time Because there is no one else Who will fight for us If not You, our God. |
We chose this theme in response to the constant, tragic strife of which we hear every day—in Syria, in Iraq, in Kenya, in Libya, in Nigeria, in Mexico, all over our globe. No matter what we do with our own lives and careers, day to day, in our relatively safe and stable society, we cannot escape such news, the clamor of war and murder and bloodshed: it dominates most what we see on our television and computer screens, hear about on our radios, read about in our magazines and newspapers. So I have chosen music and texts which respond to this shared situation, providing an island of peace, beauty, and hope. I expect our audience will be as pleased to hear us sing these pieces, as the singers are to perform them.
Chorale will begin and end its concert with settings of the Da pacem text. We will open with a setting by contemporary Spanish composer Javier Centeno, commissioned in 2005 for the First International Meeting of Schola Cantorum in Burgos, Spain. It received its premier performance in the square of Burgos Cathedral, at night, sung by more than 1000 children holding a torch or a lit candle.
I discovered the piece by searching for “Da pacem” on YouTube, and found that it struck just the right tone for our concert. Composed in a straightforward, homophonic style, it has a brooding, emotional tone that I find very appealing—though simple in concept, it manages to evoke deep, complex feeling and reflection. I proceeded to contact Mr. Centeno through an internet search. He very obligingly gave us permission to perform his piece, in what I assume will be its first North American performance.
Mr. Centeno is currently professor on the Teaching Faculty of Burgos University as well as the Department chairman of Didactics of Music Expression. He has performed as a tenor all over Spain as well as in France, Italy and England, principly in oratorio and baroque opera. He performs frequently with such ensembles as the Arianna Ensemble, Grupo de Música Antigua de la Universidad de Valladolid, and Fundación Excelentia. He has conducted the choir of the University of Burgos and has lectured on choral conducting and vocal technique.
Our concert’s final group will include another setting of the Da pacem text, this one by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, composed in 2004. Pärt and his music need little introduction or comment from me-- he is the most performed contemporary composer in the world. This setting, composed in Mr. Pärt’s trademark minimalist style, is quite unlike Mr. Centeno’s—rather than the traditional melody and harmonic accompaniment one finds in the latter, it displays the compositional device Pärt has called tintinnabuli, characterized by simple harmonies and single, unadorned notes suggesting triads and reminiscent of ringing bells. Like Centeno’s piece, it is dark, brooding, evocative of far more feeling and experience than its relatively passive texture would suggest.
Da pacem Domine
Having laid our St. Matthew Passion to rest, Chorale now moves on to our spring project, Da pacem Domine.
Having laid our St. Matthew Passion to rest, Chorale now moves on to our spring project, Da pacem Domine. This will be a radical departure from the other concerts of our 2014-15 season: whereas both of them consisted of single works, with orchestral accompaniment, presented in grand venues, our current preparation consists of sixteen contemplative a cappella motets, sung in the appropriately intimate, live acoustic of St. Vincent DePaul Parish, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. I have planned this concert as an opportunity for the singers to work on a genre of repertoire which would challenge them to listen and polish in a somewhat more exacting manner, than they do with accompanied music, which requires larger and more theatrical effects. The a cappella discipline is good for us, and we enjoy the subtle, many-faceted beauty of this music. We also need this time to prepare for our July tour of the Baltic countries, which will be undertaken by a smaller subset of the group, and which by definition requires a cappella repertoire. After the tutti forces sing the program in concert, June 13, that subset will reconvene for three weeks, and prepare the same music as a chamber choir. I have been challenged to select repertoire appropriate to both ensembles-- and in some ways it is the larger group that has the harder job. I am also challenged to select music which will be interesting and satisfying to two very different audiences: our Chicago audience, and the audiences we will sing for in Europe.
One of my guiding principles, in selecting the program, has been to showcase contemporary American composers. I assume this music will be of special interest to European audiences, and I have sought a representative sample—not just because it is American, but because I like it, and because the music and texts fit our theme. We will sing pieces by composers Stephen Paulus, Vincent Persichetti, Jean Berger, Morten Lauridsen, and Yosef Weisgal-- pieces which reflect several different strains of American choral composition, but which share in common a skillful approach to writing for unaccompanied voices. I also chose music from the part of the world in which we will be touring-- pieces by Swedes Gunnar Eriksson and Otto Olsson, Finn Einojuhanni Rautavaara, and Estonian Arvo Pärt. I suspect our European listeners will be familiar with their own music, will be happy with the way in which it is performed “at home,” and will not be as interested in hearing us do it, as they will be to hear us perform our own music—so I have been somewhat sparing in those choices.
I also do not want to limit us to contemporary music for this particular preparation. We will sing a concert of music composed within the past fifty years, based upon the ideas and procedures of “spiritual minimalism,” next season, in honor of Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday; but for this current program I wanted something looser, with more variety and a broader appeal. Something that might be more familiar and appealing to a general audience (assuming that a general audience is interested in listening to an entire concert of sacred a cappella choral music!). So we will sing motets by Heinrich Schütz, Anton Bruckner, and Henry Purcell, and a chorale by J.S. Bach, all of which fit our theme and are appropriate to our forces.
Our remaining pieces, by Javier Centeno Martin, Philip Stopford, John Tavener, and Bob Chilcott, and not exactly random: they are thematically appropriate and fit the overall sound and tone of the concert, providing colors I feel we need to make a unified whole out of a collection of smaller works.
I’ll write more about our actual theme, Da pacem Domine, next week. For now, though, you should put us on your calendar and plan to attend our concert of extraordinarily lovely music. June 13, 8 PM, St. Vincent De Paul Parish.
Chorale Retreat
A choir that enjoys brats, beer, and Frisbee together, has an irreplaceable advantage, over one that does not.
Each fall, at about this time, Chorale meets at a site other than our regular rehearsal venue, and spends an entire day, placing voices, reviewing our past, digging into our new repertoire, getting to know our new members, and leaving most of the outside world behind. This year is no exception. We will meet this Saturday, September 27, at Ellis Avenue Church, and kick off our new season with a total immersion experience, from donuts and coffee to brats and beer. Chorale’s members live all over the Chicago region, from St. Charles to Northern Indiana, from Evanston to Crete. Some of them drive as much as two hours through rush hour traffic, every Wednesday, to get to rehearsals; they arrive just as the singing starts, and drive home as soon as it is over, and haven’t a lot of time, before and after rehearsal, to socialize with other members. And, because we tend to rehearse only once a week, it can be difficult for singers to remain fresh and engaged with the repertoire, and with Chorale’s approach to singing it. Membership could all too easily become an encapsulated blip on ones weekly radar, providing far less of the overall, exhilarating experience than we intend. Our opening retreat allows us to really roll around in our music, absorb the smell of it, and become comfortable with the people with whom we share it.
We start out drinking coffee and eating, of course. Our librarian, Erielle Bakkum, will distribute music—which, this fall, is Mozart’s Mass in C minor, ‘The Great’, which we will sing with Civic Orchestra of Chicago on November 24, at Symphony Center. We begin rehearsing, as always, with a period of vocal warm up, both because we need it, and to introduce our sound and production ideals to the new members. At this time they will meet our accompanist, Kit Bridges, whose leadership from the keyboard is so integral a part of our musicality. After warm up, we will divide into sections, and I will place the voices in each section in an order which is both most comfortable for the individual singers, and best sounding from the outside. Once placed, the choir will reconvene and begin work on the “easier” movements of the Mass, finding their sound, their balance, their “place in the choir.” After a break for lunch, Frisbee, and conversation, we will gather in the rehearsal space again, and continue rehearsing, touching on at least one of the more difficult movements (they are all difficult, whom am I trying to kid; but one with some challenging polyphony). Interspersed amongst both the morning and afternoon rehearsal periods, we will hear about “the state of the choir” from our board president, Angela Grimes, and be informed of specific details and housekeeping items by our managing director, Megan Balderston. In the meantime, Megan and a team of non-singing volunteers will take care of food, culminating in a bratwurst and beer celebration at the end of the day. By this time, many families, including children, will have arrived to join us in eating both the brats and all the other, potluck items members have provided.
Later in the Fall we will rehearse on a couple of Saturdays, as well, to help us keep our edge and forward momentum, right up to our conductor’s piano rehearsal with Nicholas Kraemer, who will take over at that point and conduct our performance with Civic.
A choir is so much more than a group of singers, each of whom turns their talent on and off at the touch of a button once a week. We are an “ensemble”—together, in so many senses. Without that togetherness, we tend to lose direction, motivation, commitment—and this loss shows up in the quality of our performances, as well as in the enthusiasm with which we sell tickets to our friends, and fill our halls. A choir that enjoys brats, beer, and Frisbee together, has an irreplaceable advantage, over one that does not.